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Just out of curiosity.... how much would you play the piano if you didn't need to practice?

I asked this question of a former concert pianist, now instructor, and was surprised to hear that he never 'just plays'... and practices only when needed.

And you?
If you walk by a piano, do you want to sit down and play?

Yes, to your last question.

I believe I would actually play the piano more often if I didn't need to practice. I don't particularly like practicing. I practice because that's what I have to do, in order to be able to finally play (which is where I get the bulk of my enjoyment). But that also means I sometimes put off practicing, since I don't like it very much.

If I could just sit down and play anything I liked (or anything I had a score for), I'd probably play the piano twice as much as I do now.

The same amount as if I didn't need to practice. :P

To the second question, yes, but I have terrible stage fright, so if it's in public, usually not. If someone asks for a couple pieces in private, usually yes.

I probably play for enjoyment, 1 hr for every 2 hours of practice. If I didn't practice at all, maybe 1 hr might be added to the enjoyment column, but the other hour would go to something else.

I never "just play". I always work on something. So I guess my answer would be not at all. I do sometimes try, but I always immediately notice something I am not pleased with and cannot resist starting to work on it instead of "just play". I actually love to practice, but maybe that's because my practice is never routine, but I work on something I am eager to learn or fix. And I only study pieces I like.

But maybe it's also because playing from a score is so hard for me and I cannot seem to keep any pieces I learn in memory without regular practice, so when they are learned they are soon forgotten. So there's not much to play. If I wanted to "play for pleasure" I should improvise I guess...

Of course when I see a piano I want to try it out, I just love pianos as instruments and I love to explore their differences.

Uhm... who practices? I play what I want to play when I want to play it and when I get tired of that one I start on another one. I currently have a dozen or so things that I can play reasonably well, four or five that are works in progress at various stages, and another dozen or so that I've just made a start on.

When I started this about two years ago I wasn't really sure where I would be going with it; over the course of time I've sort of gravitated to old-timey songs (My Way, Who Threw the Overalls into Mrs. Murphy's Chowder, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, etc) and movie theme music. I suppose it makes sense since that's the sort of thing that I like to listen to.

I don't consider any of it "practice"; I'm just playing what I want to hear. And it keeps my bird entertained which is positive because it's not good for him to be standing around bored.

And that's good enough for me.

Play for pleasure. There isn't any other kind as far as I'm concerned.

It occurs to me to add that by playing this stuff myself I get to hear and appreciate small (and large) details that I would never notice when simply listening to a recording of someone else playing the same thing. I've found that I actually listen to music somewhat differently than I did before I took up this hobby, as well. A lot of it is a kind of mathematical equation, and I had never visualized it that way before.

Yes, but you can't just sit down and play anything you want to play exactly the way you want to play it, right? That's why you call some things 'works in progress', while others are 'things you can play reasonably well'.

To me, the pleasure is in playing things I can play reasonably well. The rest is practice, which I often find tedious.

Isn't it fascinating how different people can be? The activity I enjoy the most is when I am focused trying to find the solution to how to play things well and time disappears. After I do find it my interest fades a little. Luckily there's always something new to work on, so the pieces are never "finished".

For me practice is only tedious if I am to learn something that I don't find musically fascinating. So I just don't

I suppose if 'practicing' means working on specific problems, I only practice when I am learning a new piece for my recital, or polishing up an old piece. Otherwise, I am playing for pleasure and I don't have any specific piece in mind before I sit down at the piano - I just play any memorized piece that comes into my head at that moment, or improvise. Or I might open a volume of something to play from it. Usually, I'll keep playing until I have to go do something else, like go to work or eat. Which could be up to three hours (I am usually thirsty or hungry by then........).

If I come across a piano, I have to play it, no matter where it is - any piano draws me irresistibly in, like a moth to a flame.......

I don't enjoy playing for pleasure so I find it difficult to maintain a repertoire of finished pieces. It could be symptomatic of where I am in my piano journey, but I am reminded when I was running, I always enjoyed the planning and the training while not so much the actual event. Practice to me is never boring as I am generally eager to see if I can improve on where I was yesterday.

Me, too! and I don't have the skills that you have to voluntarily play in public... but it just doesn't matter. I HAVE to play if I am allowed.. and, in spite of performance anxiety. It is as if the piano sings a siren's song.... and it is louder than any fear of 'am I ready' or 'do I play well enough'.

I started this question because of two things that occurred last week: the former concert pianist that does not play for pleasure and a hotel piano that is 'furniture only' and no one is allowed to play. It just sits, deteriorating. which, IMHO, should not be the fate of any piano. There are so many pianists that would love to own a grand, and the hotel could replace the grand with a few easy chairs and a coffee table. A win-win.

8 hours a day. If I could, I would. It's like a drug. It's like magic. It's timeless and weightless and nothing else exists. There is only now, in that moment, and how you communicate. How you feel that music. What it does for you and your listeners.

Yep, for sure, if I didn't need to learn, if I didn't have to practice, it would be 8 hours a day for me!

(I know, I know, die hard hippie, yep).

An interesting thought, and possibly important facts to know.
That proposition, to me would mean that I would the pianists pianist and at an incredible skill level.
I would then be in concert halls and totally mesmerize any kind of audience, no sheet music required.
Until it became boring and then I would go and do something else.

As it is now, I never play for pleasure or mesmerize an audience. It's always about conquering a new challenge.
Sometimes it's about playing it well enough to get it down on tape.

I'm not particularly crazy about piano as the only instrument.
Quite the contrary, I love all kinds of instruments and I've skipped from one to another.

But for quite some time now, I've found the discipline to work on piano for a certain time period every day since I joined the discussions here in PW.
If I see a piano anywhere, I am of course drawn to check it out.

Play for fun? Never.

If I wasn't a student anymore and could just improvise and play..I would play piano at least 2 hours a day, as a way to relax from work and crazies. Like many on this forum, we are tediously tied to practicing more than playing. Back to real life as adult student, as I try to work on my recital pieces, I play about 90 minutes in total per week in trying to retain them in some form.

I can see where a concert pianist doesn't play the piano for enjoyment. He/she does it because it is their job. Would you want to do your job when you are not at work? A concert pianist doesn't "enjoy" playing the piano like we do because it is their job to do so.

But it's not necessarily like that...only yesterday I stayed late at work just because I could not make myself stop working on something...and I also have a bad habit of doing some work on my free time (no-one asks me and I don't get paid any more). If something really interesting is at hand, I may prefer working to doing whatever I do at my free time...

No.

+1

Although, for me that's only true for one of my two jobs, and the one for which it's true is primarily a teaching job, which means it has no fixed schedule: while I teach at pre-determined times, all the prep work that I do obviously happens outside of those times, and that doesn't really register in my mind as 'overtime'. I'm just doing my job. The work is done when it's done. In a sense, there is no 'free time' being taken up. It may well be like that for professional musicians, too.

The example I gave was a FORMER concert pianist (several decades ago) who now teaches only. Therefore, I was genuinely surprised when he doesn't just sit down and play for enjoyment. To be able to play well enough to sustain a career and really play whatever you want, and then not have intrinsic pleasure in the act of making beautiful music...

..but then, based on the responses here, he is not alone. There are those that enjoy the problem solving of practice, and would play little if it were no longer a challenge.